- Today's show, we'll focus on fabric.

Are you a fabri-holic?

How much do you spend on cloth in one year?

Well, that's our little secret anyway.

Yes, we collect it, we covet it, we stroke it, we hoard it, we barter it, we share it.

We even stare at it.

We drive miles for it, and then we cut it all apart to sew it back together again.

Just what would we do without it?

On the show today, see how a quilt, "Percolator Patchwork," is inspired by a piece of conversation print.

[upbeat guitar music] ♪ Could you imagine a more clever object ♪ ♪ Warms the body, ignites the mind ♪ ♪ A child sleeps under Mother's creation ♪ ♪ Together forever ♪ ♪ The art of the heart and design of the mind ♪ ♪ Puts you to bed one day at a time ♪ ♪ The art of the heart ♪ ♪ And design of the mind ♪ - [Announcer] "Lap Quilting with Georgia Bonesteel" is made possible in part by grants from Leisure Arts, publisher and distributor of needlework and craft publications, including an assortment of quilt books and related products, by VIP Fabrics, a division of Cranston Print Works Company, America's oldest textile printer.

Additional funding by Omnigrid, the original patented black and yellow ruler, and by Bernina, delivering sewing technology and education to sewers worldwide.

- First question, where do you store your fabric?

Well, I used to store it on shelves in my sewing room until I took a good look at my dark fabric, and on the fold, a fade line had become very evident, so now I keep it in a closet behind closed doors.

Second question, how do you collect a good fabric stash?

Well, I have come up with the answer.

And that has to do with the fabric alphabet from A to Z.

If you'll just get one of each of these, I think you'll have a good beginning.

Let's start with the letter A.

A is for Amish, A is for African, animal prints, which include dogs and cats.

We seem to be more heavy in cat fabric.

And architecture, everything from buildings to houses to bricks.

And B is for background, batik, and border prints.

C, of course, is for calico, and cruise fabric, and cheater cloth.

Yes, they print our entire quilts on fabric.

D is for decorator prints.

That wide fabric that quite often comes with a design going one way.

And quite often on the selvage, you'll see an arrow marked up.

I like these little codes on the selvage that help you when you're piecing the long strips together.

E is for elaborate.

And that refers to all the metallics printed on cloth today, gold and silver.

F is for folk fabric, and then focus fabric, sometimes called conversation prints, and florals.

Then we have G, all the geometrics, everything from pin dots to checks and plaids, both woven and printed.

H is for hand-dyed and holiday prints.

I, Indian and those western prints that we love so much.

J and K are for kid, baby, juvenile.

And then we take a big jump to jungle prints.

L is for landscape, everything from cows printed on fabric to trees and leaves.

M is for muslin, that staple in the quilt business.

M is for music.

N is for nature, stones and sky.

And we always need water fabric, even a little bit of Monet watercolor.

O is for one-way directional fabric, things that have a top and a bottom.

And then, of course, the non-directional fabric.

O is also for old-timey prints.

P is for paisley and patriotic.

Q for quilted fabric.

Why, we have fabric that already looks like it's been quilted.

R is for recycled fabric.

And we're gonna do an Ohio star block made from parts of a leftover wool skirt.

S is for solids, every color of the rainbow.

T is for texture and toile.

U is for uglies.

We can always find an ugly.

My, look at that orange.

V is for our very important prints, quite often the classics that we just hold onto and rely on a lot.

W is for white on white, very hard to see.

X, Y, Z. X has to do for extra.

Y is all the yardage we need, and Z are the zingers that we love to hold onto to just add that little bit of dash in our quilts.

Where in the world does all of this begin?

The origin of fabric begins far from your fabric shelves at home, all the way to a design board in New York City.

Wouldn't you like to decide on what fabric goes into your next quilt?

What would you create?

Well, let's meet the people who do, the people that make those decisions.

Lynne Jordan and Megan Downer with VIP and Cranston Collections.

Megan, the first question.

How do you become an art director in the fabric business?

- Well, it certainly requires some training, some background training in the art field, and specifically textile design is the way to go.

- [Georgia] But you had an interesting beginning.

Tell me, personally, how you started.

- Well, it, perhaps a little bit different.

It wasn't as though I was as a child interested in becoming a textile designer, and I always knew that was what I wanted to do.

Actually, I was very interested in environmental sciences, and so my training was gearing me towards going into that field.

But I was also taking a lot of drawing, and found that I was actually more interested in drawing, and my interpretation, my feeling about the natural objects that I was looking at.

- Does someone tell you what to design and draw?

Or do you come up with the ideas?

How does it all start?

- Well, it's a combination of all sorts of things.

As I mentioned, we work with marketing and merchandising departments, but, you know, it's also, for me, going to flea markets, yard sales, getting ideas from outside, being aware of of what's happening in the world, and thinking, "Well, how do people really want to create?

What kind of environment do people want to create in their homes or around themselves?"

And it's many things.

It's not just one thing, it's many things.

- [Georgia] It's quite a responsibility when you start thinking of the everyday things that you live with and look at every day and sleep under.

[Megan chuckles] The concepts, how does it actually begin?

I guess on paper.

Do you wanna show us that?

- Certainly, yes.

We'll start with something that might be our...

This is our inspiration and wanting to do a beautiful floral.

So this is a rough sketch that we would start with something like this.

- [Georgia] Now, how long do you work ahead in something like this?

- Oh, at least a year.

- [Georgia] Now, this particular collection, is it just this print or is there more to go with this?

- Oh, no, there are many more to go with this.

This is a whole coordinating collection.

And I'll show you where this piece actually became our lead pattern, our major pattern, and this is what you can see in any particular direction also.

- [Georgia] So that's the scale.

You're working on a pretty large scale, and then you go smaller.

I see something smaller underneath.

- Yes, indeed.

What this is, is the next coordinating pattern.

What we start with all our patterns is to do a line drawing and to work out that the repeat is going to look, and then we drop in color to see how it's working as in the repeat also.

It's very important to see how the color works, how it's spotted out.

- [Georgia] Then what happens from there?

- [Megan] Well, then we go into actually painting, carefully painting up the pattern and showing it in another color combination.

And we keep working with other coordinating patterns.

This has come down even a smaller scale, and even further with different color combinations.

- [Georgia] So each of those colors would go with that lead print?

- [Megan] Absolutely.

That's exactly what this whole collection is about, that each pattern, you can pick any single one out individually or altogether.

They'll all work perfectly together.

- [Georgia] Oh, I like the plaids.

- [Megan] Yes, they're always important to have something like that in a collection.

- [Georgia] So how many colorations will there be in that group?

- [Megan] Well, at this point there are two separate palettes.

One that's in the pink and sage green palette.

And the other, which is in this deep blue and Chinese-red combination.

- [Georgia] That's a good options there.

- [Megan] Yes, indeed.

Lights and darks.

- [Georgia] As part of this collection, you've done a very clever idea.

Tell us the name of this and what you've done there, Megan.

- Well, the name of this collection is called Impressions.

And what we've done here is that we have worked with Janet Page, a very good quilter who does many quilts for us to do a project for the very beginning quilter.

And what this is, this is a 50% reduction of what the actual fabric will look like.

And she has designed this in such a way with our fabric to create a project that is very simple for the beginning sewer and quilter to start with.

- Very, very good idea.

Lynne, what kind of training did you receive to become an art director?

- Well, I majored in textile design in college, and it was a four-year bachelor of fine arts degree in textiles at Moore College of Art in Philadelphia.

And in my senior year, I spent three months on a work study program here in New York with a large textile company.

And upon graduation, I went to work for them as a colorist doing basically color, a combinations.

And then left for another firm where I moved on up to doing, actually designing and supervising of staff.

From there, I left that firm and came into this company where I was a stylist to start, and continued on up till I've reached the position of design director.

- Before we view another fabric sequence, I know quilters would be so interested to see this big book, 1880 date on it.

And it makes us realize that we have certainly come a long way from these copper-printed designs to what you're doing today.

- That's correct.

These are artwork, the original artwork for screen printed designs.

Here's one inspired by an antique teapot collection.

This is the actual art that goes up for engraving.

And then, at the next step is that we get a table strike off to show us different color combinations that we'd like to see and then select from.

Here is one that we chose not to use, pretty as it was.

And here are the ones that we did decide to go with.

- [Georgia] Now, how many different colors can go in something like this?

- Well, we can print up to 16, but on this pattern it is a 13 screen pattern with 13 different colors to make that detailed design.

- [Georgia] Lynne, this is a current running fabric called Americana.

Tell us about it.

- [Lynne] This is a coordinated Americana group with different quilt type patterns.

This one has sort of applique blocks, and this is a coordinated pillow panel with two different views and a border stripe that can be used as trim.

- And then I think it's so nice that these are available in quilt shops where you can get all sorts of stimulus and how to finally use your fabric.

The patterns are given here, and the setting, the size of the borders and everything.

- Right.

- I particularly like the collection that Janet Page did, Panorama.

This particular collection starts with a pillow panel in a garden maze setting.

And then, Lynne, tell us where it goes from there.

- [Lynne] Well, it continues around the garden with the greenery and an ombre watercolor sky, a nature study stripe, a floral, water, and a floral stripe with scenery.

- And now let's examine how they've used those in quilts.

Our first quilt is a medallion style with a swirled pieced center, accented with some raised relief work in flowers in the corners, and even trapunto work in hand quilting.

"View from my Window" is a picture quilt that makes use of that printed panel with a mountain and the sea.

What an interesting sampler quilt.

A watercolor concept making use of the border prints, the darker colors in the center radiating to the light patches.

Megan, understand you had a hand in making this particular design.

It's called "Adirondacks" and it's a lot of the north woods.

Tell us about your ideas here.

- Yes, the collection was based on felt cutouts, and certainly with the homespun up being so popular was the inspiration.

- [Georgia] And I like the accent borders with the log cabin blocks.

How many ways can you use this?

- Oh, it has many different ways.

If you notice the wall hanging that's in the back here, the jacket, which is made up of triangular pieces of fabric, of course, a pillow and a small backpack.

- Lynne, I'm amazed at the continued popularity of the pre-printed vest, not only for adults but for children too.

I look at it as a stepping stone for the beginning sewer.

And then look what quilters can do.

Add that little bit of a hand touch, the yo-yos, and more buttons.

What an array that you have here.

What's the latest in quilts?

What can be looked for in fabric coming up?

- Well, there seems to be a revival in the use of calicos, and here is a small mini wall quilt, where several different prints have been put together to make an interesting design.

As a matter of fact, in this quilt, you'll see close closely that there is a small potted flower toss design, and then it's echoed in the main central area of the quilt.

And there's many different color combinations in these prints that are very popular at this time.

- Lynne and Megan, we thank you so much for sharing your thoughts today.

And as a quilter today, we just encourage you to stay busy at those design boards.

We want more fabric.

All right?

[all laugh] - Okay.

- Well, it is a pleasure to be here at North Carolina State University with Alan Donaldson, who is a professor here at the College of Textiles, and also with Elizabeth Wilson, who we have kept track of for many years because she was a former guest on "Lap Quilting."

And now we have found her here at the Centennial Campus.

We wanna talk about textiles and the opportunities for textiles for young people today.

- There's more variety in the field of textiles than in any other field of industrial endeavor.

There's tremendous variety because it's such a people-orientated industry, and people desire change all the time, especially when you get into the more fashion-orientated aspect of things, color, shape, pattern, texture.

People demand more and more all the time, and the industry today is responding faster than ever because of computers and CAD systems such as this wonderful room that you're in just now.

And those of us who are involved in the the design part of things, we are involved in everything from the technology of materials, the technology of production, marketing, and being required to come up with products which are easy to make, easy to use, easy to look at, and easy to buy.

And to be able to create that package, to meet these requirements requires some tremendously creative skills.

- [Georgia] You were in engineering and then you switched majors.

Why did you make that change?

- There was, at first I was thinking about textiles, and I thought about engineering.

I was always interested in math, and through high school, I loved math.

And once I was in engineering, there's so many people, you know, there's so much competition.

And when I switched to the textiles, you were closer to the students, you were closer to your advisors and your teachers.

You felt more, I guess, safe with, you know, you felt more, there was more opportunities out there, and it was just, it was a whole different field, I think, and that's why I liked, I'm so glad I changed.

- The statistic I have the other day, which was quite mind-boggling, despite the fact that the textile industry this year, in most but not all sectors, has been having a a hard time.

As a few days ago, we had 91% placement of our graduation cohort of May, 1996.

And I think that tells you an awful lot about the industry.

- Coffee pots on a quilt, why not?

Johnson Farm, which is a historic farm in Henderson County, run by the public school system, came to me and requested a charity or a fundraising quilt.

So inspired by our "Percolator Patchwork" fabric that we joined efforts with the Western North Carolina Quilters Guild to put and complete this quilt together.

I'd like to give you the sequence of drafting, and hope you will become inspired to pick up a pencil and a pen, and draw and make your own original block.

I start with the size that I'd like to have the block completed.

In this case, a 12-inch block.

I use Grid Grip because it's poly-coated on the back.

It has a continuous 1/4 inch grid on the front.

And I think of this as a piece of fabric, straight of the grain and crosswise.

I know that I can draft on this, cut it apart, and use it as a template.

It becomes a sewing guide at the end.

Now I designated a 2 1/2 inch band at the top for the lid of the coffee pot.

Then I did the pot itself.

Finding the midpoint, I came over four inches on each side, and three inches at the bottom.

I start with a pencil, and then I quite often go to an indelible pen when I'm happy with the design.

When that's done, I knew I needed a spout.

So I came down 1 1/2 over at the top one, and then two times came up 2 1/2 inches.

That gives me a wide spout going to narrow at the top.

At this point, I knew I had to think about the little lid, came over five inches, and then just a little black lid here.

We're getting small pieces, but once I see the geometrics here and the math, I know that I can just add that 0.5 to cut each of these shapes out.

Now, the templates themselves, I have to iron on the back of my cloth.

When I do that, I will be reversing the spout.

It might be designed over here, but it'll end up on the opposite side.

I like to code, C-O-D-E each of these pieces, it's the sequence that I'm gonna sew them together.

I also would designate the dark and the lights.

It helps me when I'm ironing that on the back of the fabric.

One will go to two, and then to three, four, five, and six.

Now the only one I have left to do is the spout on this piece of fabric.

Let's go to the sewing machine and we'll almost complete this block.

In order to start piecing, we need to get this one last template pressed on.

Now, I would keep in mind the grid needs to be lined up exactly with the selvage.

And when you get it done and you're not quite happy with it, see how it's off just a little bit?

It's nice because I can tear this off and then try it again.

Sometimes I even use a ruler on large pieces to make sure that they're perfectly parallel.

Of course, you need to leave that quarter inch around each template.

I know that I've got the selvage and I'm gonna be cutting that off.

Then I come over, and using my smaller tools, because I'm working with smaller templates, I can then with my see-through ruler, go ahead and add my quarter inch around each of the sides of this template.

Now, if you're really a good seamstress person, you can take off the Grid Grip, and go ahead and just do what we call the old-timey sewing, stitch in from the raw edges.

However, if you're new at patchwork and you'd like the security of having that extra line to follow, then go ahead and keep the paper on.

What I will do at this point is take my number one and number two and hold it up to the light.

You have to make sure that you look through.

And I do this pin and peek routine.

I will pin here, open it up, and make certain that the grid continues all the way down.

In other words, this is the line that I drew, and what's coming in between that line coming together again is simply the seam allowance.

When I know I'm happy with that, then I'm ready to go to my machine.

I do not want to sew on the paper underneath.

But as long as I'm right next to the paper, I feel that when I open this up, it will bend very nicely and there won't be any restrain there.

[machine whirring] The other reason I don't like to sew through it is because I might want to reuse that template.

So all I need to do is open it up and see that here is my spout that's gonna go over on the opposite side.

I'd continue that sequence with number three and number four, five, and six, always knowing that I tear off the paper after it's been sewn, and keep in an envelope to be reused sometime.

What makes this quilt unique are two things.

When we gave out the pattern, I did not give any handles out because I wanted 20 individual handles, and I think we really got that on the quilt.

People designed their own.

Some were very plain and straight, some were very fancy, and so it's like we had 20 individual coffee pots.

And I think that added a lot of character to the quilt.

Then I was worried that all the colors of the coffee pot would fade into our fabric.

So I got the idea of going to our next-to-new shop, and you can always find a napkin that's seen better days, and bought a set of napkins, and simply cut off the right angle.

And that was stitched in between the border and the bottom of the coffee pot, so they were sitting on a table.

We look forward to seeing you next time on "Lap Quilting."

Join us for our show "Design Details."

[upbeat guitar music] ♪ Could you imagine a more clever object ♪ ♪ Warms the body, ignites the mind ♪ ♪ A child sleeps under Mother's creation ♪ ♪ Together forever ♪ ♪ The art of the heart and design of the mind ♪ ♪ Puts you to bed one day at a time ♪ ♪ The art of the heart ♪ ♪ And design of the mind ♪ - [Announcer] "Lap Quilting with Georgia Bonesteel" is made possible in part by grants from Leisure Arts, publisher and distributor of needlework and craft publications, including an assortment of quilt books and related products, by VIP Fabrics, a division of Cranston Print Works Company, America's oldest textile printer.

Additional funding by Omnigrid, the original patented black and yellow ruler, and by Bernina, delivering sewing technology and education to sewers worldwide.